Sanvean I Am Your Shadow
by Kay Taylor
Summary: Percy can't stand Cedric, can't imagine why he's being haunted.


Percy can't stand Cedric, can't imagine why he's being haunted. Surely there were more appropriate people - people who would appreciate a little chain-rattling and door-slamming. People who would be missing him. There was Cho, with her inky-black hair and eyes puffy from weeping. There was the entire Hufflepuff Quidditch team (and Percy has to shut his eyes tightly to keep from thinking of showers, warm water and steam, the ugly yellow-and-black robes peeled off to show sleek skin). There was Harry, who had been there.   
Surely, Percy thinks, Cedric will get bored one of these days, because he's got the wrong person.  
  
Go away, Percy mumbles into his bedcovers. Go away.  
  
The room isn't much, but it's home - there's a desk, and a tray full of papers, and a box full of books under the bed, because Percy could never see much use in unpacking. The floor is bare. The bedcovers are taken from the Burrow, and they're faded and darned and smell faintly of his mother's kitchen. And in the crook of the eaves, behind the desk and next to the door, there's a corner where Cedric Diggory is sitting, wearing that ugly Quidditch uniform.  
  
His hair is messy, and there's something luminous about him in the moonlight, and when Percy sticks his head from under the bedcovers, he's still sure that Cedric is dead, because the moonbeams go straight through him. Percy sighs.   
  
Go away, he says firmly. I'm trying to sleep.  
  
I'm not stopping you, Cedric says, and smiles.  
  
Yes you are, Percy insists. Stop it. Go back to Hogwarts.  
  
Cedric shrugs, and smiles, and won't say anything else. Percy turns over in his bed, feeling the ghost watching him.  
  
Cedric remembers a flash of green light, tearing his world apart, breaking him limb from limb, sending him somewhere dark and terrible and howling.  
  
Cedric remembers Harry, his face screwed up with concentration, fighting to keep hold of something pulsing with shadowy golden light.  
  
Cedric remembers his father, shouting at him.  
  
Cedric can't remember Cho, though he knows he ought to; he can remember the thorny scent of rosebushes from the Yule Ball, and the rustle of taffeta, and warm skin against his. He can't remember his mother, either.  
  
The floorboards creak, and Percy gets out of bed, looking cross and grumpy and somehow endearingly young. he says, are going home. I don't care why you're haunting me. You're not my responsibility. I'll speak to Dumbledore, and -  
  
ghost-Cedric says from the corner.   
  
And he'll spell you back into the castle, and you can be someone's house ghost or something, but you absolutely cannot stay here, Percy carried on, looking severe.   
  
Ghost-Cedric sits in the corner, wearing shadowy Quidditch robes.  
  
And I'm not interested in why you're haunting me, either, Percy says, sitting cross-legged on the bed. But if you're not going to let me sleep -  
  
Your family, ghost-Cedric says, slowly. He can hear his voice, coming from very far away.  
  
Don't talk to me about my family, Percy snaps, and picks up a pile of papers. It's three o'clock in the morning.  
  
Cedric had floated out of his body one day and hadn't come back; Cedric had passed over his mother and father (though his mother is still a blur on his memory, his father stands out in sharp relief, all bluster and arrogance and pride), and sat in his own room and listened to them crying downstairs. His father had blamed himself, of course. For pushing the boy. For putting him forward. For never listening.  
  
ghost-Cedric had said fiercely, winding insubstantial fingers around the pillow.   
  
Percy wakes up to a cold wind blowing in his ear; it takes him several confused moments to realise that he's fallen asleep on top of the covers, and he's lying on a Ministry report on flying carpets, and a dead Hogwarts student has climbed into bed with him. The cold wind is the rise and fall of Cedric's breath, though it's so slow Percy thinks he might be asleep. Do ghosts sleep? he wonders to himself, and notices how Cedric's hair is faded-out, like an old photograph. His skin looks as though it's seen through water. And Cedric opens his eyes, and smiles.  
  
That's it, Percy snaps. Get out of my bed.  
  
Ugly Hufflepuff colours, seen in sepia - tight white trousers clinging to Cedric's thighs, gauntlets wrapped around strong arms, cuts and bruises preserved forever in a ghost. Cedric has unbuttoned the top, and it's slipped down to show his collarbones. Percy knows that he's only looking because he's always hated Quidditch players, sharply, in that two-colour relief that comes from wanting, and not getting. Percy is the Ministry, and books and Prefect's badges, and he went to sleep every night at Hogwarts wondering what sweat would taste like, what mud and rain would smell like off a warm naked body.  
  
The ghost touches him, then, and Percy recoils; not so much from being touched, but because Cedric's hands are cold, icy cold, and chill fingers on his shoulder sends shivers up Percy's spine (and spreading, roiling warmth between his legs). You waded into the lake, Cedric says, and he sounds wistful.  
  
Percy is suddenly very aware that he's only wearing pyjama bottoms - sensible, flannel pyjamas, as his Mum nearly had a fit when she found out Percy was living in an unheated attic in Diagon Alley - and he's sitting in bed with a ghost, and this is a superstitious kind of situation, even for a wizard. He sighs.   
  
Into the lake, Cedric insists. Cold fingers on Percy's shoulderblades. You were all sensible and serious, and you went running into the lake when they were pulling Ron out.  
  
Percy knows what he's talking about.   
  
When his father had come into the upstairs room, eyes lined with tears, Cedric had slapped him, hard across the face. This is your fault! he'd screamed. You made me do it! You made me do everything!  
  
But his hand went straight through him, and Amos Diggory sat on his son's bed and cried, unaware of the seething, tearful ghost standing in the corner.  
  
Cedric remembers seeing serious young Percy Weasley, white with fear, running into the Hogwarts lake to meet his younger brother. He remembers bumping into Percy again at the Yule Ball, and Percy looking right through him. Almost like a ghost, and Cedric has been dead long enough to see the irony there.   
  
Cedric remembers seeing the Weasley family at King's Cross Station, three days after he died. He can't remember how he got there, but he can remember that Percy had been waiting at the barrier for his younger siblings, and they'd almost walked straight past.   
  
Cedric remembers seeing Percy in Diagon Alley, sitting in the Leaky Cauldron with his bags all piled around him, with his face pinched and worn, like an old man's. Cedric had followed him up to the attic room, and watched as he threw up, then burst into tears. Cedric had sat in the corner, between the eaves and the desk, and waited for Percy to notice him.  
  
You're dead, and you're trying to give me some kind of moral homily? Percy says. I don't need advice. Especially not from ghosts.  
  
He says the last word pointedly, trying to remind himself that Cedric isn't even there; it's only his memory lingering on, his imprint on the world that's still walking and talking. But it's hard to convince himself when the Cedric-ghost is running cold hands down his spine. Percy has always hated Quidditch players.  
  
Especially dead ones, he says, under his breath.  
  
He tries to remind Cedric that he's lost - Hogwarts is that way, he says, and points. He tries to tell Cedric that his family must be missing him, but the ghost's eyes darken.  
  
I did everything for my family, once, he says. I wanted to make them proud.  
  
I'm sure they are, Percy says.  
  
Cedric laughs. You're a fine one to talk, Percy Weasley.  
  
Percy bristles. I don't know what you're trying to say, but -  
  
Being kissed by a ghost is like having a cold wind blowing in your face, Percy realises - like the bitter steel biting wind that howls around the Hogwarts battlements in December. Cedric's lips are soft and almost not-there, but he's substantial enough, though for a horrible moment Percy thinks he'll lose his balance and fall through him. Cold lips. And Percy doesn't know what to say or when to breathe, and ends up almost choking, because he doesn't want to take a breath of cold, cold ghost-wind by mistake.  
  
Close your eyes, Cedric is saying, and Percy moves forward, feeling the horrible chill on his bare chest, making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, making his nipples tighten and his breath come unsteady. This is wrong, Percy thinks, ghosts shouldn't follow you around, shouldn't sit in your room, shouldn't kiss you, shouldn't be sliding cold hands down the front of your pyjama bottoms and making you explode with heat. He tries to concentrate on his latest Ministry report, to stop it all happening, to give himself a hand-hold on the real world. It doesn't work.  
  
You're lost, Percy whispers. You should be back at Hogwarts.  
  
Cedric's ghost gives him a wintery smile, making the bedcovers rustle with the spectre of his passing.  
  
Not as lost as you.


End file.
